As we read reports of unseemly barracking and tussles in the hallowed Long Room at Lord's (fallout over a controversial dismissal in the Ashes test match, which was deemed by many not to be in “the spirit of cricket”), we have been contemplating the whole issue of defusing anger. The cricketing world is reeling from the repercussions from a very rare event, but anger is a frequent challenge in everyday life and in the workplace.
If you are confronted by an angry person – whether they’re a client, a partner, friend or colleague – it’s easy to feel upset and flustered. Regardless of the reason for their anger, it’s a common reaction to respond in kind, which escalates the situation needlessly. It is a far better idea to stay calm, to attempt to understand the reasons for their emotion, and to do your best to acknowledge and resolve the problem.
Recognising anger can be difficult, since many people do not display it openly, resorting instead to passive-aggression, which you will need to detect. Look out for these telltale signs:
• A disengaged and distant demeanour
• A refusal to respond to requests and questions
• Sulking and withdrawing
• A tense and taut facial expression: a forced, tight-lipped smile
• Secretive behaviour
• Lack of eye contact
Whether you are faced with someone who is volatile and enraged, or dealing with someone who is displaying all the signs of passive-aggression, your strategies should essentially be the same:
• Assess the situation: if you feel the person is completely out of control and judge their behaviour to be threatening enlist the help of other people. Do not deal with the situation on your own.
• You need to stay composed in these circumstances, so practise techniques such as deep breathing to calm yourself down. If you feel reciprocal anger is beginning to build – a common occurrence since anger is a very contagious emotion – take a break and reassess the situation.
• You must understand the reasons for a person’s anger. In the case of someone who is behaving passive-aggressively, this may involve asking delicate, probing questions (“you don’t seem yourself this morning, is something wrong?”). Once you begin to unpick the reasons for anger, you may well find that the emotion has nothing directly to do with you – it might well have been caused by stress or emotional overload. It is much easier to cope with someone’s anger if you can distance yourself from it emotionally, so try and understand the reasons at the outset.
• Don’t dismiss the anger. You may feel that the angry person is suffering from a massive overreaction, and that their rage is quite unconscionable, but saying something like “I really don’t see what you’re getting so worked up about” is liable to have explosive consequences. Instead, acknowledge the emotion: “I can see that you’re very angry”, which is the first step towards understanding the rage and defusing it.
• Once you have understood the cause of the anger, you need to establish the exact nature of the grievances. If somebody says, “Nobody takes any notice of me in this office”, for example, this is a generic assertion of a problem. You will need to drill down, ask questions, and you will probably find that specific instances of neglect or disregard lie at the root of the outburst. Listen carefully and empathetically and – no matter how much you may disagree with what is being said – do not interrupt the speaker; this is a red rag to a bull, demonstrating that they are not being given the attention they deserve.
• When it is your turn to speak, remember to keep calm. Consciously lower your voice, speak slowly and adopt neutral, non-threatening body language (no leaning forward, using aggressive hand gestures, thrusting your face towards the other person, invading their personal space). Avoid bland, clichéd statements like “I know how you feel” or “I understand your anger”. Instead, make direct reference to what has been said, demonstrating through reiteration that you have truly been listening. For example, saying “so you feel that I didn’t give you space to speak in yesterday’s meeting?” is much more effective than saying “That sounds frustrating”.
• If you profoundly disagree with what the angry person is saying and feel that their rage is based on misunderstandings, paranoia, or misplaced arrogance, now is not the time to point this out – you will simply escalate the situation. You will need to address their misunderstandings, but for the time being park the discussion. Say something like “Thank you so much for explaining that to me. I think we really do need to sit down and find a way forward, but let’s not do that when emotions are running high.” Follow through on that promise and schedule a meeting or a time when you can re-visit the discussion.
• Offer a solution. Once you understand the anger, and providing you acknowledge that it is legitimate, you should come back with a positive suggestion. In some cases, you will understand the reason for the emotion, see what has caused it and be able to instantly promise that this will never happen again. But all too often the situation is not so cut and dried; you may feel the person is flying off the handle, or that a colleague, friend etc may have been traduced. In cases like this, you will have to offer a more conditional solution, which promises that efforts will be made to understand and avoid future occurrences: “I understand that you felt we were overly dismissive of your suggestions. I’ll talk to the team about this and in future we’ll make sure we give you more time and space…”
• Apologise, even if you’re doing it on somebody else’s behalf. If your behaviour has caused the outburst, then it is obvious that you must apologise. But even if this is not the case, you can still offer an apology, which acknowledges that person’s pain: “I’m so sorry Bill made you feel that way etc etc”. Whatever the source, an apology will go a long way towards mollifying an angry person.
• Address the anger. If somebody is much given to intemperate outbursts of rage, or is an inveterate passive-aggressive sulker, it can have an extremely harmful effect on relationship dynamics. In this instance, it would be a good idea to address the behaviour (though wait until a moment of comparative calm). Do not approach the person with anger issues in an accusatory way, but instead emphasise the negative impact their behaviour has on both you and other people. So avoid statements that begin with “you”, eg “when you start yelling and screaming you terrify the junior team members” and try to frame it from a first-person perspective: “I really find it uncomfortable seeing how terrified the junior team members are when they have to confront shouting and yelling.”
As always, use good manners as a tool to disarm and mediate. Your mantra should be to always remain polite, whatever the provocation, and you will find that civility and courtesy will go a long way towards alleviating potentially explosive situations.
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As the sporting summer unfolds, we inevitably find ourselves locked into debates about what constitutes sporting behaviour, gamesmanship, and the overwhelming urge to win by fair means or foul.
We are contemplating a highlight of the tennis calendar with the beginning of the much-awaited Wimbledon fortnight. As thousands of fans flock to SW19 to enjoy the atmosphere of the All England Club or simply to set up camp outside and enjoy the grass court action with fellow enthusiasts on giant outdoor screens, the annual debate rumbles on about tennis players’ on-court behaviour: is it getting worse?
There have always been tennis mavericks who have indulged in abusive on-court behaviour, although the majority of competitors play with calm professionalism and good grace. However, in recent years the phenomenon of playing to the crowds seems to have become more evident, and there are certainly elements of the fan base who rejoice in certain players’ ‘bad boy’ image and enjoy egging them on. As a result, matches can become raucously partisan, with fans screaming encouragement at inappropriate moments (just before the opponent is about to serve, for example) and enthusiastically cheering on their increasingly frazzled player when arguments break out over line calls. All this is a far cry from the hushed and reverent atmosphere that Wimbledon fostered.
Why do tennis players, and other competitors in a range of elite sports, feel compelled to abuse linesmen and umpires and show them no respect? Why are some players guilty of egregious acts of gamesmanship, which can be defined as using a range of techniques to unsettle their opponents and throw them off their game – time wasting tactics, delaying their serve until the last possible permissible moment, playing to the crowd? Much of the answer probably lies in their coaching and early initiation into the game. In the increasingly cutthroat atmosphere of professional sports, some coaches create a motivational climate that is performance-based, with a relentless emphasis on winning at all costs. Focusing on sporting behaviour and assisting young players to find ways of burying their seething emotions of rage, panic and frustration beneath a calm, unruffled exterior is seen as a time-wasting distraction from the main event: winning matches.
If bad behaviour is not rooted out and dealt with early in a player’s career it can become entrenched and extremely hard to shift. If fans encourage and applaud a player’s worst antics, their bad behaviour can begin to define them: they play up to the crowds and the abuses escalate. The most troubling aspect of all these antics is that young up and coming players tend to ape their heroes and may replicate their worst behaviour.
There is very little the professional authorities can do about players’ internal demons. If a player is locked in an agony of self-castigation and frustration, they become a sad spectacle for crowds and court officials alike. The authorities can only intercede if these volcanic emotions are manifested externally, through racket abuse or hitting the ball into the crowd. In these cases, the player will be fined.
However, it is a different matter if players turn their rage and frustration on court officials. Sometimes outbursts of foul-mouthed ranting and invective can go on for an unconscionable length of time before steps are taken. Players are fined for bad behaviour but in tennis, as in other sports, the fines are in no way commensurate with the player’s earning abilities. A fine of a few thousand pounds must mean very little to a player who can earn hundreds of thousands of pounds at a single tournament. Perhaps it is time that more serious sanctions are explored, such as a default or exclusion from future tournaments.
If you’re attending Wimbledon this year, think about your behaviour as a spectator. Follow time-honoured sporting rules: it’s fine to applaud the players you’re supporting enthusiastically, but it is equally important to do their opponent the courtesy of applauding their best shots as well. It’s extremely disrespectful – both to other players and to your fellow spectators – to yell out encouragement in the middle of games. Booing and whistling or standing up mid-rally and waving your fist at the players, are all unacceptable behaviour. Remember, being a passionately loyal supporter should never be about behaving in boorish and threatening ways to the opposition. It’s all about encouraging your favoured player to scale new mountains of sporting achievement, not about crushing and demoralising the opponent.
Whether you’re an aspiring, or established, tennis player, follow these simple and time-honoured rules for sporting behaviour:
• Always apologise when you win a point because of a fluke, eg. because of a net cord or a mishit. That way, you will be acknowledging that winning should really be about skill and finesse, not good luck.
• By the same token, you should accept your opponent’s outrageous good luck with a wry smile and an ability to move on. Luck is cyclical and your turn will come again.
• The self-congratulatory fist pump is now a near-ubiquitous gesture in tennis but remember there is a big difference between a moment of discreet self-satisfaction and the urge to make the gesture towards the opponent, which can be seen as wind-up.
• If your opponent plays an outstandingly good shot, acknowledge it – this can be done by simply raising your racket in approbation.
• If your opponent begins to lose the plot and starts questioning line calls, screaming and shouting, you will need to find a strategy for avoiding a tit-for-tat battle. Remember, your good behaviour should be innate and robust enough to resist the worst assaults. If you can rise above your opponent’s fury, you are showing yourself to be a better person – and your tennis will probably improve if you refuse to become distracted.
• Whatever the result, and however badly your opponent has behaved, respect the rules of the game and shake your opponent’s hand, with a murmured “well played” at the end of the match. If you’re the winner, remember that gloating or triumphalism should be ruthlessly controlled.
• Above all, remember that spectators want to watch a supreme display of sporting prowess, not an ugly spectacle of threatening and aggressive behaviour. Let the tennis do the talking.
As many of us increasingly conduct our day-to-day relationships through social media, as well as relying on online sources for news and gossip, we are becoming less and less able to distinguish between personal connections in the real world and our virtual relationships. It is important that we pay attention to our online persona and how we interact online, much as we would in the real world. Our online life can have far-reaching real-world impact, so it needs to be navigated with great care.
Unfortunately, the speed and immediacy of online communication and the fact that social media exchanges are frequently taking place within an isolated, de-contextualised space (removed from the mediating judgment of other people) can mean that all too often we act on impulse. If we are angry, upset or outraged we are far more likely to communicate impulsively, without stopping to think about consequences. Whether we are contributing a vitriolic comment to a thread associated with a news story, tweeting dismissively about a celebrity, or responding intemperately to a friend, we seem to have lost all sense that our actions have real-world repercussions. In the heat of the moment, we lose our ability to pause, think empathetically about our ‘victim’ or target, logically examine how our remark will make them feel, assess the magnitude of any potential fallout. These are all thought processes that we deploy all the time in our face-to-face relationships, ensuring that we do not behave in a disinhibited, unpredictable or damaging way. But for many of us these checks and balances seem to have been completely forfeited in the virtual world.
We may feel that the online world has freed us from the constraint of conventional social relationships but posting impulsively has a very real aftermath. Very little that we post online is completely private. We can adjust and fine tune our privacy settings, but the fact remains that our most unbridled outpourings have been endowed with a measure of permanence because of the medium we have chosen to use. They are written in black and white; they can be read and accessed (even if it only by the chosen few); screenshots can be taken; they can be disseminated and fall into the wrong hands; even if they are subsequently deleted, they may well have an afterlife. Social media posts, unlike the spoken word, are unambiguously concrete; they can be duplicated and are indisputable (and of course carry the weight of evidence in a court of law).
It is scarcely surprising that your online persona can be used in evidence against you. Potential employers, friends, stalkers, enemies or rivals are all perfectly capable of tracking you down online and may well find damaging material. Encountering your drunken rants, vitriolic outbursts and no-holds-barred accounts of nights out and mornings after may well stymie that all-important job offer or jeopardise an important friendship.
Given the availability and longevity of online material, it would be logical to take extra care when navigating online relationships and to be cautious and tentative about what you reveal, though all too frequently this is not the case. If you are interested in taking back control of your online persona, your priority must be to curb impulsive behaviour. Whether you’re liking cute pictures of kittens, or railing against a politician’s latest travesties, get into the habit of pausing for a few moments and thinking about the potential reactions, both positive and negative, that you will elicit. Then follow these simple tips:
• Don’t go online when you’re feeling emotional
When you’re in the grip of strong emotions you’re much more likely to behave impulsively. So try to teach yourself to take a beat. Pause, walk away from your phone or laptop, make a cup of coffee, stare at the garden, do a household task. Any of these mundane actions will take the heat out of your feelings and help you to calm down. By staving off the impulse to act impetuously you have given yourself the time and space to think, calmly and logically, about what your next step should be.
• Find another, safer outlet
If something online has made you furious and you feel an overwhelming impulse to start trolling the offender, try to vent your rage elsewhere. Call up your partner or a good friend you can trust and have a rant; at worst they may find it boring, but they are not the subjects of the attack so they will be able to soak up some of your anger.
• Try using private communication
If you are offended by something a friend or colleague has said, don’t respond in a public forum. Call them up and discuss the issue in person or send them a direct message. Try and resolve your problem without inviting an audience – public comments will elicit input from other people and may escalate the situation.
• Protect your privacy
Remember just how accessible your posts are to a wider world and remind yourself that it is very important to compartmentalise different sides of your life and persona. If you want to truly safeguard your privacy, don’t post; try phoning, texting or interacting in person instead.
• Delete and apologise
If you have posted impulsively and instantly regret it, take the post down if possible. Accept that it may already have had a damaging impact and apologise. If you have attacked an individual, send a heartfelt direct message of regret, accepting that you acted foolishly and impulsively. Where appropriate, post apologies on public forums.
• Take a break
We’re all beginning to accept that the internet is addictive and compulsive. Many of us find it unbearable being offline and have become dependent on rapid-fire interactions and feedback, excited to feel that we are plugged into a whole universe of possibility. However, the downside of all this activity and engagement is poor concentration, distraction and detachment. Ultimately, this can lead to feelings of emotional disassociation and lack of empathy – precisely the conditions in which impulsive, and damaging, behaviour occurs. If you feel you are beginning to suffer from internet addiction, try your utmost to take a break – switching off your phone and initiating some face-to-face interactions with friends and family is a good place to start.
Image: Victorian depiction of early 19th-century Christmas celebration by Charles Green, Wikimedia Commons
Formal dining, like much of Victorian life, was strictly circumscribed by the rules of etiquette. Good table manners were, of course, paramount, but great emphasis was also placed on invitations, punctuality, precedence and a proper seating plan. In this, as in so much else, savoir-faire was a prime requisite for anyone who sought status within the social hierarchy.
It was the obligation of the host to ensure that their formal dinner ran seamlessly. “A dinner, to be excellent, need not consist of a great variety of dishes: but everything should be of the best, and the cookery should be perfect. That which should be cool should be cool as ice; that which should be hot should be smoking; the attendance should be rapid and noiseless; the guests well assorted; the wines of the best quality; the host attentive and courteous; the room well lighted; and the time punctual.”
There was no tolerance of indecision or prevarication when it came to invitations: they should be “replied to immediately, and unequivocally accepted or declined. Once accepted, nothing but an event of the last importance should cause you to fail in your engagement.”
On the night of the dinner, guests were expected to be “exactly punctual”, with some etiquette manuals opining that it was better not to show up at all (providing one sent an apology) than to be late and to inconvenience the hostess and the other guests.
The next great ritual was the “taking down” to dinner. Once the guests were all assembled, the hosts took each gentleman aside and pointed out the lady whom he was to conduct to the table. If that lady was a stranger, it was up to the gentleman to single her out beforehand and seek an introduction. When dinner was announced the gentleman offered the lady his arm and the couples proceeded down to the dining room in order of precedence.
The tricky matter of precedence was the host’s responsibility: “When the society is of a distinguished kind, the host will do well to consult Debrett or Burke, before arranging his visitors.” In less elevated company a simple rule of thumb was followed: “The lady who is the greatest stranger should be taken down by the master of the house, and the gentleman who is the greatest stranger should conduct the hostess. Married ladies take precedence of single ladies, elder ladies of younger ones, and so forth.”
The vexed question of where to seat the guests could make or break a dinner party, then as now, and the advice in etiquette manuals will be familiar. There were certain unbreakable rules in relation to the prime positions at table: “The lady of the house takes the head of the table. The gentleman who led her down to dinner occupies the seat on her right hand, and the gentleman next in order of precedence, that on her left. The master of the house takes the foot of the table. The lady whom he escorted sits on his right hand, and the lady next in order of precedence on his left, &c.” Married couples were, of course, separated unless they were recently wed, in which case they were allowed to sit together.
As far as seating the rest of the guests, hosts were advised to be tactful and mindful of the social dynamics. A “good talker” should be placed at the centre of the table where he could be seen and heard by all; it was obviously a bad idea to place two such people in proximity. Putting gentlemen of the same profession next to each other was ill-advised as they were liable to fall immediately into an exclusive conversation that would be of no interest to the surrounding guests. The politics, religion, and general opinions of the various guests should all be taken into consideration.
As soon as the guests were seated, they were advised to remove their gloves and place the table napkin on their knees.
Formal dinners proceeded with stately predictability. First was the soup, which was followed by the fish course (by the mid-19th century serving fish and soup together was considered old-fashioned). It is firmly stated that “All well-ordered dinners begin with soup, whether in summer or winter.” The soup was dispensed from the tureen by the lady of the house and bowls were sent round to each diner. Firm advice was given to diners not to ask for second helpings of fish or soup, as it might delay the arrival of the main course and inconvenience fellow diners.
The third course introduced the principal dishes of roast and boiled meats and fowl, accompanied by various side plates. Increasingly, the “French fashion” was followed, and meat was carved on the sideboard by servants and handed round, which relieved the host, or a designated guest, of the responsibility of carving (although it was advised that every gentleman should acquire the art of competent carving). When dessert arrived, gentlemen were requested to help neighbouring ladies, serving strawberries, passing cherries or grapes, and volunteering to peel apples or peaches.
When it came to helping neighbours, diners were told that it was “inexpressibly vulgar” to offer to “assist”; instead, phrases such as “Shall I send you some mutton?” or “may I help you to grouse?” were recommended.
Today, we are inclined to wait until everyone is ready to eat, unless explicitly instructed otherwise, but the Victorians took the opposite view. “As soon as you are helped, begin to eat; or, if the viands are too hot for your palate, take up your knife and fork and appear to begin. To wait for others is now not only old fashioned, but ill-bred.”
Servants were usually responsible for taking wine round the table and filling glasses and the gentlemen were firmly instructed to take charge of the glasses of the ladies next to them and ensure their glasses were filled. It was considered inappropriate for ladies to ask for wine, but entirely acceptable for them to decline it, so if they wished to drink, they were reliant on the good offices of their male neighbours. Expectations of ladies’ wine consumption seem surprisingly high: “Young ladies seldom drink more than three glasses of wine at dinner but married ladies, professional ladies, and those accustomed to society, and habits of affluence, will habitually take five or even six, whether in their own homes or at the tables of their friends.”
As far as general conduct was concerned, guests were advised to eat “deliberately and decorously” and to ensure that they were not “too much engrossed in attending to the wants of the stomach, to join in the cheerful interchange of civilities and thought”. Gentlemen were expected to be assiduous in attending to the needs of the ladies, whilst showing due appreciation of the “delicacy, moderation, and fastidiousness” of their appetites.
At the end of the meal, after coffee and liqueurs had been handed round, the ladies retired to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to their cigars, cognac and conversation. When the ladies left the dining room, the gentlemen all stood and remained standing until the last lady had left the room. Lingering too long in the dining room was considered a “bad compliment” to the hostess and her female guests: “a refined gentleman is always temperate”.
Obviously much of the burden of organising the dinner fell on the hostess and she was advised never to be “dependent on the taste and judgment of her cook”. If her cook was not up to the task, it was perfectly acceptable to order a meal from a reputable restaurant.
Hostesses were expected to be calm, discreet and attentive throughout the evening, never displaying a whisper of anxiety or stress. It was considered bad form to reprove or give audible directions to their servants. If they were the mother of small children, they were adamantly advised not to allow their children to make an appearance at any point in the evening: “Children are out of place on these occasions. Your guests only tolerate them through politeness; their presence interrupts the genial flow of after-dinner conversation.”
The hostess, in short, must “neglect nothing, forget nothing, put all her guests at their ease, encourage the timid, draw out the silent, and pay every possible attention to the requirements of each and all around her. No accident must ruffle her temper. No disappointment must embarrass her. She must see her old china broken without a sigh, and her best glass shattered with a smile.”
An article in Cassells Family Magazine (1875) gives us a highly prescriptive account of the ideal Victorian dining room. The author confidently asserts that “warmth, comfort and hospitality” are the goals of the décor, and therefore rich and glowing colours are recommended. Rooms should be wallpapered in crimson, oak or green, with perhaps a little gold in the pattern to give a “brightening effect”. If the owner of the room is lucky enough to possess a fine array of paintings, these should be displayed against a plain and delicate colour, such as pale green, buff or salmon.
On the floor a Turkey carpet is recommended: its warm colours contribute to the cosiness of the room, and it is also extremely hard-wearing.
Curtains should be heavy and substantial: “Cloth, woollen rep, and Cotelan (a German manufacture made of silk, wool, and cotton) seem to be the most suitable for the purpose; a plain colour bordered with a trimming to correspond will look the best”.
Mahogany furniture is highly recommended, and it ias pointed out that the furniture should be “en suite”: mismatched items of furniture will give the room a “patched and forlorn look”. A four-square dining table, with legs at the corners, is decreed to be the most convenient: “the most inconvenient is the Pembroke table, whose four legs are in such awkward positions that they are always in everybody’s way, and invariably get kicked or knocked by someone. Then there is a dining-table whose legs are clustered in the middle, and form a pedestal; this has its drawbacks, for the weight of the dishes presses most heavily where there is no support, and consequently this kind of table is not very steady in its behaviour.”
Beyond a doubt, Cassels identifies the sideboard as the “chief glory” of the dining room. If it is affordable, a carved sideboard is the most desirable, but the writer firmly prefers a “perfectly plain side-board well made, than one showy and florid, having great pretensions, but proving an impostor on inspection.”
Dining room ornaments should be few in number and plain: on the mantlepiece there should be candles or a small candelabra, a clock, a spill pot (for lighting cigars), and a couple of vases. These items should be made of marble, bronze or serpentine. The sideboard should be dedicated to the serving of food and should only be used for functional items such as the tea-caddy, serving salvers, biscuit box and dessert-knife case.
Quotations are taken from:
Routledge’s Manual of Etiquette, George Routledge, 1860
How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Etiquette and Guide to Correct Personal Habits, Samuel Wells, 1865
Cassels Family Magazine, 1875
Everybody experiences disappointment from time to time and when hopes and expectations are dashed we can be left feeling crushed or resentful. Dwelling on our feelings of disappointment can be destructive: other people are frequently implicated or made to feel partly responsible and may not know how to respond.
Some setbacks are the results of genuine bad luck and are beyond our control; some are very much our own responsibility; they are predictable and preventable.
Think about your expectations – it is often elevated expectations that lead to disappointment. When our hopes and expectations are not realistic or attainable, we are bound to experience disappointment. Are we aiming too high? Are we being too demanding and perfectionist? Are we trying to get away with something, thereby avoiding recrimination? Are we trying to achieve something that is essentially beyond our abilities or our grasp?
Or are we aiming too low and fulfilling our own unambitious predictions? Are we suppressing our expectations in order to avoid having to confront disappointment? This form of self-preservation can lead to an unchallenging, unfulfilled life and a general feeling of self-dissatisfaction.
Your behaviour may well be a factor in recurring disappointments: Are you unclear in your communication? Have you managed to convey what you expect from others? Do you understand what you expect from yourself? Are you listening to what other people are saying to you? Knowing yourself, are you adjusting your expectations to align with a realistic appraisal of your abilities?
Don’t castigate other people when you experience disappointment and try not to let your tendency to blame others lead to feelings of disenchantment and betrayal. Instead, examine your disappointments and see them as an opportunity to learn about yourself, your capabilities, your ambitions, your blind spots. Learn to accept disappointment with good grace and use the experience as a catalyst for change.
• Don’t deny you’re disappointed
Acknowledging an emotion, as long as you don’t disappear down a rabbit hole of recrimination and regret, is a good idea. People will respect your honesty and will respond to it much more positively than denial or deflection. But keep it short and snappy; no need to rehearse the minute details of everything that has gone wrong.
• Don’t lash out
Your natural tendency may be to blame everybody but yourself for your travails, and disappointment may well turn you spiteful and vindictive. This is not a good look. It is also frequently extremely unfair; you need to take a long, hard look at the situation and accept that you may well have contributed to it or be wholly responsible for it. Once you acknowledge this, you must accept accountability for your own actions and any negative impact they may have had.
• Don’t wallow in self-discrimination
You may have an impulse to go the other way and decide that shouldering the blame for absolutely everything that has gone wrong will redeem your image in the eyes of the world. This is a simple miscalculation. There is only so much self-flagellation that onlookers can take, and they may ultimately feel resentful of the fact that your abject self-criticism is forcing them into a position where they must step in and bolster your self-confidence.
• Don’t drag other people down
It is important, especially if you’re in a leadership role, to resist whining and self-pity. If you suffer a disappointment that has had an impact on your team, employees, or allies your job is to boist everyone else’s morale, not to spread a miasma of doom and gloom. Practise adopting a bland and inscrutable poker face, make a brief statement acknowledging your disappointment and move briskly on.
• Don’t prolong the drama
We’ve all suffered serious setbacks, endured searing criticism, stayed awake at night enumerating our regrets and thinking about what might have been. But dwelling on these negative emotions will leave you stuck in a rut and, instead of minimising the disappointment, will ensure that it looms large. Put it all behind you, learn from what happened to you and keep moving forward.
• Don’t dig in and keep repeating your mistakes
Ultimately you will be judged on your ability to rise, positively and stoically, above disappointment. If you fail to do so, you will continue to make the same errors of judgment and will be seen as someone who is stuck in a rut of failure and negativity.
Balmy summer evenings: birdsong; the clink of glasses; the barely audible sound of gentle conversation from the neighbouring garden. How many of us can honestly say that this is our experience of hot summer nights? As the temperature goes up, we all tend to gravitate outdoors – to gardens, patios, balconies. The light fades late in the evening, the temperature is optimal, and we live outdoors: eating, drinking, chatting, listening to music al fresco. This all sounds delightful, but it can all too easily get out of hand. We fantasise about civilised co-existence, but often we're faced with a barrage of noise at anti-social hours.
Noise carries at night in still gardens. Loud conversation and music late at night robs us of our sleep and frays our nerves. Early birds can be equally disturbing: if you’re looking forward to a Sunday morning lie-in and your neighbour is an enthusiastic gardener, who’s up with the lark and thinks nothing of powering up the mower at 8am, you will also have cause for complaint.
Being good neighbours in winter is so much easier. We huddle indoors and sound is muffled and inaudible. Summer, on the other hand, is a challenge.
If you are beginning to feel plagued by noisy neighbours, think carefully about their transgressions. If they choose to eat outside, chat and play music on warm summer evenings, but regularly turn in by midnight, you may have to accept that it is their right to do so, and you must learn to live with it. Your neighbours may very well not share your ideas about the outdoor lifestyle. They may have an entirely different taste in music, noisy children who tear around the garden when they get back from school, a barking dog, or a regular visitor with a particularly shrill and penetrating laugh. But can you honestly say these are major social transgressions? We all must accept, when we live in a community, that harmony will only be maintained if we are tolerant and prepared to make concessions. If we lay down the law, and insist that everyone complies with our lifestyle choices, we will inevitably cause conflict.
Broadly speaking, we all need to accept various parameters. Most people work during the day and their children go to school. This means that, on weekdays, they need to get up reasonably early in the morning. Keeping people awake after midnight is therefore inevitably going to be unpopular. Weekends are a different proposition, and probably require greater reserves of tolerance and flexibility. However, repeated and regular noisy weekend parties, which come around with grim regularity, are also beyond the pale. If your neighbour’s music is regularly played late at night at loud volume (especially if the bass is amplified) and the outdoors socialising often extends into the early hours of the morning, then you have a legitimate grievance.
If you’re beginning to feel troubled by noise, remind yourself of all these considerations and think carefully about whether an objective observer would find your complaints reasonable. If you think this is the case, begin to keep a note of noise transgressions and assess whether they are tipping into the intolerable category. If that is the case, your first course of action is to speak to the neighbour.
Try your hardest not to charge around to your neighbour’s front door when you’re in a lather of rage and frustration. You will inevitably enter the fray with all guns blazing and may well make the situation worse. If possible, try and engineer an ‘accidental’ encounter with your neighbour. Chat about how lovely the weather has been, compare notes about how much you’re enjoying the summer. Then, when everything is reasonably harmonious, try to gently point out the problem. Say something like “I know how much you love sitting out in the evenings, but the music and conversation gets very loud and we’re having real problems sleeping. Do you think you’d be able to call a halt by 11 on weekdays? We’d be so grateful.” With any luck, your neighbour will feel mortified by the fact that you’ve been forced to complain, and disarmed by your extremely polite and sympathetic approach, and will do what you ask. If they do what you ask, acknowledge it. When you next meet them say, “by the way, I’m so grateful to you for keeping the noise down. We really do appreciate it.”
Of course, this may well not be the case. You may have an intractable and aggressive neighbour, or your latest complaint may just be one in a long stream of problems. Your neighbour may find your request absurdly over-demanding in the circumstances. For whatever reason, they may decide to dig in, ignore your pleas, and even up the ante by tweaking up the volume and prolonging their evenings outside. You may suffer a serious deterioration in relations as a result.
If that is the case and you feel you really cannot handle the situation, the next step is to write to your local council and outline your complaint. Councils are prepared to take any complaints of noise nuisance between the hours of 11pm–7am seriously. Bear in mind that councils will only tend to investigate recurring noise nuisance, so it’s no use going down this route because of just one loud party. The council may ask you to keep a diary of the issue, so if you’ve been noting down problematic occasions that may well be useful.
It’s easy to feel victimised by other people’s noise, but remember that you can also be a perpetrator, so look at your own behaviour and try to be as considerate as possible. Think about your neighbours, keep your eye on the time, and be aware that – if the clock is ticking towards midnight – you should call it a night and take yourself, your friends, and your music indoors. Be considerate about DIY and loud machine noise early in the mornings, especially at weekends. Make it a rule that, whenever you’re about to make a loud noise, you pause for a moment and think about the impact on the people around you.
Finally, if you’re entertaining in your garden or patio and you know that proceedings are likely to be noisy and spill over beyond the midnight cut-off, politely warn your neighbours. Ideally, invite them (especially if it is a big garden party), as this is the perfect way of diffusing any disputes. But if you’re not able to do that, have the courtesy to go round and apologise for any disturbance in advance.
Ascot stages 26 days of racing throughout the year, but the five-day Royal Meeting, held annually in the third week in June, is the most famous – a key date in the social calendar which combines venerable tradition with fashionable panache. Every year Royal Ascot takes place in late June.
The first race meeting ever held at Ascot took place on 11 August 1711 and was instigated by Queen Anne, but it was with the accession of George II that the race became the second most popular in England.
In the 1790s, a Royal Stand was erected to ensure privacy for members of the Royal Family. The Royal Enclosure, as it is now recognised, dates to 1822 when George IV commissioned a two-storey stand to be built with a surrounding lawn, with access by invitation of the King.
In 1825, the annual tradition of the Royal Procession began. The King, leading four other coaches with members of the Royal party, drove up the centre of the racecourse in front of the crowds, establishing the tradition that is still in place today. The Royal Procession opens each day’s racing at 2pm and, as the Royal landau passes, the Royal Standard is raised and the national anthem is played. It was well known that the late Queen was an ardent fan of horse-racing and Royal Ascot was one of her favourite events. All eyes will be on the racecourse this year to see which members of the Royal Family attend.
To gain entry to the Royal Enclosure, where strict dress codes apply, racegoers must obtain a sponsorship form and have it signed by someone who has attended the Royal Enclosure for four consecutive years. Convicted criminals and undischarged bankrupts were barred from the Royal Enclosure, but divorcées have been allowed in since 1955.
Royal Ascot’s much-loved tradition of ‘singing round the bandstand’ dates to the 1970s under the stewardship of Lady Beaumont, wife of the then Clerk of the Course. The after-racing medley of British favourites and flag-waving was an immediate hit, and thousands of racegoers stayed on and joined in.
Ascot’s dress codes owe much to the Edwardian era, with its tailcoats and extravagantly large ladies’ hats. This quintessentially British style still underpins dress codes today, which are strictly applied in both the Royal and Queen Anne Enclosures. The Village Enclosure and Windsor Enclosure offer more relaxed ambience, though many visitors will still choose to dress up.
Ladies:
Gentlemen:
Please note: A gentleman may remove his top hat within a restaurant, a private box, a private club or that facility’s terrace, balcony or garden. Hats may also be removed within any enclosed external seating area within the Royal Enclosure Garden. The customisation of top hats (with, for example, coloured ribbons or bands) is not permitted in the Royal Enclosure.
Ladies:
Gentlemen:
Overseas visitors are welcome to wear the formal National Dress of their country or Service Dress in any enclosure at Royal Ascot. Serving military personnel from the UK are welcome to wear Service Dress or equivalent.
In 1922 a Times journalist commented that Ascot was “notoriously the best place in England to see beautiful women in beautiful clothes.” Since the very beginning, Ascot has been synonymous with high fashion and elaborate couture.
Royal Ascot is also famous for its extraordinary hats, especially on Thursday, which is Ladies’ Day, an extravaganza of high fashion and outlandish millinery. Queen Victoria made hats de rigueur after wearing a porter bonnet (a headpiece that shielded the face from observers) to Ascot in the 1830s.
Hats were once an intrinsic feature of British life, and certainly seen as the crowning glory of a lady’s outfit. Today, there are very few occasions when it is acceptable to wear a hat that is a true talking point and Royal Ascot embraces the opportunity with enthusiasm.
The Jockey Club relaxed its dress codes earlier this year, so Royal Ascot – with its detailed rules and regulations and minutely specified brim and strap widths remains something of a standout. Most of us will never encounter such stringent dress codes in our everyday lives and we will enjoy the creative opportunity this occasion gives us to create a striking outfit that is both compliant and original.
Cricket has never been a more popular sport, not least because of investment in a range of country grounds, the increasing following for Twenty20, and the thrilling professionalism of the county teams.
From the perfect sight of a cricket match played on a village green in late afternoon sunlight to the grandeur and excitement of an England test match at Lords, cricket offers so much to the spectator. Fans will be looking forward to a summer of their favourite sport, especially to the Ashes series, which starts at Edgbaston on Friday 16 June.
The famous rivalry between England and Australia dates to 1882 when the Australians beat England on English ground for the first time, The Sporting Times promptly declared that English cricket was dead and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. During the next encounter in Australia, a small terracotta urn was presented to the English team, reputedly holding the ashes of an item of cricket equipment. Although the urn has never become the official trophy of the tournament, it has come to symbolise the high drama that is so often associated with it.
Many ‘firsts’ are recorded in the substantial annals of the game of cricket. A game that was recognisably cricket was being played in Tudor England – the word ‘cricket’ is mentioned in Florio’s Italian English dictionary in 1598. In 1624 Jasper Vinall became the first man known to be killed playing cricket: hit by a bat while trying to catch the ball – at Horsted Green, Sussex. The first reference to a ‘great match’ was in 1697 in Sussex. Just 12 years later the first county match, between Kent and Surrey, was recorded.
In 1744 the Laws of Cricket were first codified and in 1787 the first match was played at Thomas Lord’s London cricket ground. The first match at the Oval was played in 1845. The first English touring team went to the US and Canada in 1859. In 1873 WG Grace became the first player to record 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season. The first test match took place in Melbourne in 1877 – Australia beat England by 45 runs. The first test match in England took place in 1880 – a five-wicket victory against Australia at the Oval.
Cricket developed as a peculiarly British game that enshrined and perpetuated many fundamental British attitudes. Underpinning it is the notion that there were once two types of cricketers: amateurs who played for the love of the game and professionals who played for money. The ‘gentlemen’ amateurs probably had sufficient wealth and social status to be able to afford to indulge in their hobby, while the professionals presumably were concerned with the necessity to make a living. This division led to a belief that the best gentlemen sportsmen, who appeared to be operating on the moral high ground (free of the constraints of financial necessity) could meet professionals on equal terms and even emerge the victors.
In 1798 a cricket-obsessed clergyman named Lord Frederick Beauclerk, captaining a team of ‘gentlemen amateurs’, challenged the professionals (‘players’) to a match and lost disastrously. A tradition was born, and for many years these Gentleman vs Players matches, which took place every season from 1816–1962 (with the exception of the world war years) were the most prestigious fixtures on the English cricketing calendar. For the most part, the clash of ill-matched teams generally led to the resounding defeat of the gentlemen. From 1865 to 1906, however, a remarkable amateur cricketer, WG Grace, took to the field and turned the whole game around; the Gentlemen dominated the matches during this era, a triumph that was reflected in the whole-hearted enthusiasm for the game at public schools and Oxford and Cambridge.
After the heyday of EG Grace it became increasingly apparent that the gentlemen were not offering any real contest to the professionals. Gentlemen vs players matches became a good way of spotting talented amateurs and recruiting them for the professional game, rather than an exciting spectator sport, and the last of these games took place at Lords in 1962. The veneration of the flair and spontaneity of supremely talented amateurs, at the expense of admiration for the competence and efficiency of professions continued to haunt British sport –and not just cricket.
Early games of cricket were hard-fought and alarmingly violent. The Laws of cricket began to evolve in the 18th century (the MCC produced their first set of Laws in 1788 a year after the club’s foundation). Over the courses of the following century, cricket began to develop a notion of the ‘spirit of the game’, which went further than the actual laws. The prevailing idea emerged that cricket should be played with integrity and straightforwardness, linking the sport closely to the notion of sound, ‘gentlemanly’ ethics. From this evolved the idea of ‘not cricket’, which was first mooted by another enthusiastic reverend, James Pycroft, in 1851, who, condemning the timidity of the great batsman Fuller Pilch in the face of some awesome fast bowling, explored the notions of cricket and fair play: “Why then, we will not say that anything which that hardest of hitters and thorough cricketer [Pilch] does is not cricket... But certainly it is anything but play.”
In 1896 The Times thundered: “cricket is a kind of synonym for generous behaviour, nor can we condemn any conduct more severely and succinctly than by saying that ‘it is not cricket’”. The phrase ‘not cricket’ had acquired general currency and was so over-used in the first half of the 20th century that it began to become meaningless. Indeed, in 1929, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin confusingly opined: “One could not define what cricket was, as one could not define a gentleman, but one knew it, as one knew a gentleman when one met a gentleman.”
In an era of fierce professionalism, commercialism and sponsorship, cricket has become a very different sport and that telling phrase has lost much of its lustre, but it is a reminder of the very special place cricket has occupied in the British character.
• The umpire’s decision is final. Never show dissent.
• Walk when given out – no lingering or arguing.
• Applaud the new batsman as he makes his way to wicket.
• Never interfere with the seam or surface of the ball (polishing is fine).
• Never deliberately distract the batsman.
• No dangerous bowling: never risk causing physical injury to the batsman.
• No time-wasting.
When it comes to warm weather the British are quite perverse. They complain endlessly about grey skies and drizzle and greet warm sunshine with delight and abandon. They rush to parks and beaches and sunbathe ill-advisedly. Before long, the insomnia induced by hot, sticky nights, as well as the clammy discomfort of buses, trains and tubes and stuffy homes and offices begins to get to them. Red-faced and sweaty, many people become cantankerous in the heat, feel oppressed by claustrophobically high temperatures, and are restless and irritable. The longed-for summer weather has become burdensome and a ‘break’ in the weather is talked about, by some people at least, with wistful longing. This cycle is repeated several times over the course of the summer.
Irritability can be very destructive. It is hard to be around someone who suffers from moodiness and grumpiness and those who suffer from heat-induced huffiness may find their inability to control their own moods and behaviour troubling. It is obviously important to keep your internal barometer strictly to yourself. No one wants to be subjected to your emotional highs and lows: your aim should be to project equanimity at all times, and defaulting to affable good manners is a good way of moderating your moods and concealing your inner turmoil.
• Identify the source
You may well be sitting on the tube or a hot and crowded bus feeling prickly and on a short fuse. It only takes a little introspection to realise that you’re feeling cranky because you’re physically uncomfortable, and possibly over-tired because you haven’t been sleeping well. The mood trigger is simple and explicable, and therefore can be managed.
• Beware caffeine and alcohol
If you’re overcome by lassitude, it’s a common reaction to turn to stimulants. Caffeine is an obvious solution to over-tiredness and many of us turn to alcohol when we seek to change our mood. But too much coffee will make you feel hot and hyper, and alcohol – especially if you’re feeling thirsty in the heat and drink copious amounts – will dehydrate you, which may cause headaches and dizziness. The positive effects of drinking – feeling relaxed, communicative and confident – are short-lived and can mutate into more negative feelings such as anxiety, depression and anger. Stick to water (especially in a heatwave).
• Think about the bigger picture
It’s often small things – passing physical discomfort, fatigue, mild stress – that make us irascible. So, once you’re identified what they are, take a moment to gain perspective and accept that there are probably plenty of more important things (job, health, family, friends) to be grateful for, rather than fixating on niggling minutiae.
• Relax
Taking yourself out of a stressful situation, going for a walk (even if it just a turn around the garden), sit under a shady tree and listen to music, read a book, take a break. The important thing is just to take some time out and calm down.
• Communicate
If you feel you have succumbed to irritability and snapped or lost your temper, apologise as soon as you possibly can. Explain that you were temporarily deranged by heat discomfort (or hunger, insomnia, stress etc.), and emphasise that your disconcerting behaviour was nothing personal.
It’s hard to be around someone who’s tetchy and short-tempered, but there are ways in which you can improve the situation.
• Alert them
Comment on their behaviour. They might well not realise that their bad mood is manifest, so it is always a good idea to alert them to the fact. You don’t need to have a long heart-to-heart on the subject; sometimes it’s just helpful to say something like “oh dear, you seem to be in a bad mood this morning”. While the short-term impact of this sort of statement might be provocative, ultimately the message will get through.
• Explain
Sometimes you need to spell out how irritability makes you feel. You could say something like “when you speak to me in that tone, you make me feel I’ve done something wrong/offended you”.
• Sympathise
If the irritable person is reasonably self-aware, they will probably be able to explain the reasons for their bad temper. You might think these explanations are inadequate and feel that a hot bus journey is not sufficient explanation for an outburst of grumpiness but remember everyone has different triggers and sensitivities so it is best to give them the benefit of the doubt.
• Move on
Try not to hold on to lingering resentment, especially if the offender has offered a polite apology. Certainly, irritability can effectively pollute the atmosphere and may even prove contagious, but it is transitory and soon forgotten, unlike true anger. We all feel tetchy and short-tempered from time to time, so a little empathy and understanding will go a long way.
